enroll
Americanverb (used with object)
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to write the name of (a person) in a roll or register; place upon a list; register.
It took two days to enroll the new students.
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to enlist (oneself ).
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to put in a record; record.
to enroll the minutes of a meeting; to enroll the great events of history.
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to roll or wrap up.
fruit enrolled in tissue paper.
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Nautical. to document (a U.S. vessel) by issuing a certificate of enrollment.
verb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of enroll
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English enrollen, from Old French enroller. See en- 1, roll
Explanation
If you like clowning around but you're not quite ready for the circus, you could enroll in clown college to perfect your skills. When you enroll, that means you formally add your name to the list — or roll — of students. You can enroll in things other than schools or classes, and you can also enroll someone else. You might enroll your Chihuahua in a research project investigating whether dogs like to wear hats, or you could enroll your rude nephew in charm school. The "roll" of enroll goes back to the rolls of parchment that were used in medieval times for writing official documents.
Vocabulary lists containing enroll
The Circuit
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Education and Academics, List 1
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"An Early Start on College"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Gerstner began to envision a program that would automatically enroll American children in an investment vehicle that let them take advantage of the stock market growth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2026
Press reports going back to 2013 have detailed centers luring able-bodied seniors to enroll by offering food, casino visits, cash and door-to-door transportation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
Hazard ratios are often more impressive in midstage trials, which enroll fewer patients than late-stage studies do.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2026
The idea was that a special school program would be attractive enough to serve as a “magnet” for white students to enroll at a school they might not otherwise attend.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
I finally say: "Did you enroll in school?"
From "Counting by 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan
The authoritative voice we associate with Picard ordering his tea “Earl Grey, hot,” was fine-tuned over a career that began with training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where he enrolled in 1957.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026
More than 11,000 people in the U.S. turn 65 every day, and more than 70.5 million are enrolled in Medicare.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2026
To investigate, researchers enrolled 100 adults whose average age was 37.4 years.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2026
Prof Corrie worked with patients enrolled in the trial including 75-year old Tony Chapman, who was diagnosed with melanoma in 2019.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
Instead, he enrolled at Michigan Agricultural College, mostly because he could get free tuition there.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
After enrolling on the NHS Wales SilverCloud Space from Anxiety programme, he worked through a 12-week course, learning "how to manage my thoughts and let things go".
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
Ionis Pharmaceuticals conducted the international study across 13 clinical sites, enrolling 54 patients to evaluate the treatment's safety and effectiveness.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
For the record, we are not enrolling students and have no intention of operating our new schools.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
The antifraud team has turned up sundry examples of phony hospice providers billing for services that aren’t rendered and enrolling patients without their knowledge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
“Glenn? Are you enrolling or just passing through?”
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
